Former Australian fast bowler Max Walker died in Melbourne on Wednesday after succumbing to cancer at the age of 68. Walker was a fine fast bowler and energetic commentator. He also became an author, media personality and public speaker after an eight-year run with the Australian cricket team.

Walker made his Test debut in 1973 and took 138 wickets in 34 matches, with his unique medium-pace bowling action earning him the nickname 'Tangles'. He was partnering the likes of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, who were spearheading the Australian attack during that period. He was a lethal bowler as well and his career-best 8/143 against England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1975 is a testimony to it. A Tasmanian native, he played 135 First-Class games for Victoria. The 263rd man to wear the Baggy Green, Walker took 20 wickets in ODIs between 1973 and 1981.

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James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, paid tribute to Walker. "Max was an outstanding cricketer who played an important role in the emergence of successful Australian cricket teams in the 1970s," he said. "It was a golden era of Test cricket under the captaincy of Ian and Greg Chappell, and Max's medium fast bowling and his unmistakable bowling action were a feature of those teams, and then in the late 1970s when he joined World Series Cricket.”